Ministry of Tourism to celebrate World Tourism Day with the theme ‘Tourism and Peace’

• The theme ‘Tourism and Peace’, highlighting the crucial role of tourism in fostering development and global harmony. 
• The programme will include showcasing of following initiatives of the Ministry of Tourism:

1. Paryatan Mitra
2. Best Tourism Village Winners
3. Industry Partnerships with Hospitality Chains
4. Industry Status to Tourism & Hospitality – A Handbook
5. Incredible India Content Hub

World Tourism Day:

• With the aim of using tourism as a major means for sustainable development and especially poverty alleviation, the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) decided to celebrate World Tourism Day on 27^th September every year.
• World Tourism Day was celebrated for the first time in 1980.
• The date marks the anniversary of the adoption of the Organization’s Statutes in 1970, which paved the way for the establishment of United Nations Tourism, five years later.
• Every year World Tourism Day is celebrated with a special theme.

Objectives:

• The purpose of this day is to increase awareness and motivate people to travel. Since it believes that tourism helps people all across the world become even more unified and connected.

Significance:

• The World Tourism Day highlights the unique role of the tourism sector in preserving cultural and natural heritage all around the world. It acts as an auxiliary in safeguarding habitat and endangered species.
• It addresses the importance of the tourism sector in providing jobs and opportunities, mostly for women and youth, in rural as well as big cities.

Scenario of Tourism in India

• India attracted a lot of travellers in the past due to its fabled wealth. Visit of Hieun-tsang, a devout Chinese Buddhist is an example of this.
• Pilgrim Travel got a boost when Emperors like Ashoka and Harsha started building rest houses for pilgrims.
• Arthashastra’ pointing out the importance of the travel infrastructure for the state, which played an important role in the past.
• Post-Independence, Tourism continuously remained part of the Five-Year Plans (FYP).
• Different forms of Tourism like Business Tourism, Health Tourism, and Wildlife Tourism etc. were introduced in India after seventh FYP.

India Tourism Statistics 2024

• The tourism industry in India has shown remarkable growth in recent years.
• The tourism sector is projected to add about INR 21.15 trillion (around $253 billion) to India’s GDP in 2024, showing a significant increase from previous years.

Annual Report 2023-24 of Ministry of Tourism:

• Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs): 24 million, reflecting a growth rate of 43.5% compared to the previous year (2022).
• Foreign Exchange Earnings (FEEs): ₹2,31,927 crore, a substantial increase of 65.74% in 2023.
• Domestic Tourist Visits (DTVs): In 2022, India recorded 1,731.01 million domestic tourist visits, which played a crucial role in revitalizing the industry post-pandemic.

What are the Initiatives Related to Tourism?

• Swadesh Darshan Scheme
• National Mission on Pilgrimage Rejuvenation and Spiritual, Heritage Augmentation Drive
• Iconic Tourist Sites
• Buddhist Conclave
• Dekho Apna Desh Initiative

Empowering Futures: Celebrating International Daughter''s Day with the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana

• International Daughter''s Day: Celebrated on September 22nd  to honor the vital role daughters play in society and emphasize the importance of their empowerment. This day serves as a platform to advocate for gender equality and celebrate the achievements of girls.

Government Initiatives

1. Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana

• Launch Date: January 2015, part of the Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao
• Objective: To encourage savings for girls’ education and marriage, ensuring financial security for their future.

Key Features:

• Eligibility: Accounts can be opened for girls under 10 years of age.
• Initial Deposit: Minimum of ₹250 to open an account, with subsequent deposits in multiples of ₹50.
• Annual Deposit Limit: Maximum of ₹1,50,000; any excess will not earn interest.
• Interest Rate: Compounded monthly, credited annually, ensuring consistent growth of savings.
• Management: The account is managed by the guardian until the girl turns 18.
• Withdrawals: Permitted for educational purposes after reaching 18years or completing the 10th grade, allowing up to 50% of the balance from the previous financial year.

2. Sukanya Samriddhi Gram

• Community Impact: Significant initiative where over 500 villages in North Gujarat have achieved the status of complete Sukanya Samriddhi Gram.
• Process: Upon the birth of a daughter, local postmen assist families in opening accounts, leading to the establishment of over 50 lakhaccounts in North Gujarat and 15.22 lakh across Gujarat.
• Community Engagement: Campaigns in schools and community meetings promote awareness and accessibility.

Additional Government Programs

1. Beti Bachao, Beti Padhao (BBBP)

• Launch: January 22, 2015, to combat gender bias and promote the welfare of girls, especially in regions with low child sex ratios.

Focus Areas:

• Awareness Campaigns: Educating communities on the value of daughters.
• Multi-Sectoral Approach: Collaboration between various ministries to address gender disparities in health, education, and nutrition.
• #SelfieWithDaughter Movement: Grassroots movement encouraging families to celebrate their daughters.

2. Scheme for Adolescent Girls (SAG)

• Target Group: Aimed at girls aged 14-18, particularly in the Northeast and Aspirational Districts.

Services Provided:

• Nutritional support to combat malnutrition.
• Health check-ups and education on health and nutrition.
• Life skills training to enhance access to public services.

3. Menstrual Hygiene Management Scheme

• Objective: Promote menstrual hygiene among girls aged 10-19 in rural areas.

Implementation:

• Over 3,13,255 Anganwadis and 3,69,461 schools involved in educational outreach.
• Distribution of subsidized sanitary napkins (₹6 for six napkins) and free Jan Aushadhi Suvidha Napkins at ₹1 each.
• Role of ASHA workers in facilitating education and distribution.

4. Udaan Program

• Launch: Initiated in 2014 by CBSE to boost enrollment of girl students in engineering institutions.

Resources Offered:

• Free access to online and offline resources, including tutorials and study materials.
• Virtual classes and workshops to bridge the gap between school and entrance exam preparations.
• Support services such as helplines for academic assistance.

5. National Scheme of Incentives to Girls for Secondary Education (NSIGSE)

• Launch: May 2008, targeting girls from SC and ST communities.
• Financial Incentive: ₹3,000 deposited in a fixed deposit account for girls enrolling in class IX after completing class VIII.
• Goal: Promote school enrollment and reduce dropout rates, particularly among marginalized communities.

Conclusion

• Significance of September 22: A crucial reminder to celebrate daughters and advocate for their rights and empowerment.
• Comprehensive Government Efforts: Initiatives like the Sukanya Samriddhi Yojana and BBBP illustrate the commitment to creating an enabling environment for girls to thrive.
• Collective Responsibility: The need for society to invest in girls’ futures to ensure equality, empowerment, and sustainable development.

7th Rashtriya Poshan Maah

Empowering Women through Nutrition

• POSHAN Maah 2024: A nationwide initiative promoting nutrition awareness, celebrating its 7th edition, focusing on combating malnutrition in India. The campaign commenced on September 1, 2024, with extensive community participation.

Focus Areas of POSHAN Maah 2024

1. Anaemia Mukt Bharat:

• Targets anaemia reduction through a 6x6x6 strategy (six age groups, six interventions, six institutional mechanisms).
• Distribution of 180 IFA tablets to 95% of pregnant and 65.9% of lactating women as of August 2024.

2. Tech-Driven Solutions:

• Utilization of the POSHAN Tracker for monitoring nutrition delivery to over 10 crore beneficiaries.

3. Complementary Feeding:

• Emphasizes the importance of nutrition for infants aged 6-24 months, focusing on the initiation and quality of complementary foods.

4. Jan Andolan:

• Community-led activities to raise nutrition awareness across households.

Participation and Impact

• Nationwide Engagement: Over 22 crore activities conducted so far, showcasing strong community involvement.

Top-Performing States:

• Maharashtra: 1.80 crore activities
• Bihar: 1.17 crore activities
• Madhya Pradesh: 79.32 lakh activities
• Uttar Pradesh: 70.28 lakh activities
• Gujarat: 66.76 lakh activities

Thematic Focus

• Anaemia Prevention: 1.88 crore activities aimed at raising awareness and intervention.
• Growth Monitoring: 1.68 crore activities for timely identification of undernutrition issues.
• Complementary Feeding: Addressed through 1.45 crore activities.
• Education Integration (Poshan Bhi Padhai Bhi): 1.59 crore activities linking nutrition with education.
• Technology in Governance: 1.08 crore activities utilizing digital tools.
• Environmental Protection: 73.20 lakh activities focused on the link between nutrition and a healthy environment.
• Nutrition-Specific Interventions: 92.72 lakh activities promoting dietary diversity and healthy eating.
• Mass Sensitization: 54.25 lakh activities for broad-based awareness.

POSHAN Abhiyaan: Mission and Goals

• Launched: March 2018, aiming for holistic nourishment for children under six, adolescent girls, pregnant women, and lactating mothers.
• Targets:
• Reduce stunting and under-nutrition by 2% annually.
• Combat anaemia and reduce low birth weight by 3% and 2% annually, respectively.

Strategic Pillars of POSHAN Abhiyaan

• Access to Quality Services: Health services through ICDS, NHM, and PMMVY.
• Cross-Sectoral Convergence: Collaboration among various ministries for integrated services.
• Leveraging Technology: Real-time data collection using tools like the ICDS-CAS.
• Jan Andolan: Engaging communities for mass awareness and behavioral change.

Technology Integration

• POSHAN Tracker: Launched in March 2021, aids Anganwadi workers in real-time monitoring of malnutrition data, accessible in multiple languages.
• National Award for e-Governance: Received for the POSHAN Tracker initiative, recognized for digital transformation and government process re-engineering.

Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi dedicates to nation three PARAM Rudra Supercomputers via video conferencing

• Event: Prime Minister Narendra Modi dedicated three PARAM Rudra Supercomputers, valued at approximately Rs 130 crore,to the nation via video conferencing.
• Locations: The supercomputers are deployed in Pune, Delhi, and Kolkata.

 Indigenous Development

• Mission: The supercomputers were developed under the National Supercomputing Mission (NSM).
• Objective: To enhance India’s capabilities in scientific research and development through indigenous technology.

High-Performance Computing (HPC) System

• Inauguration: The Prime Minister also inaugurated an HPC system named ''Arka'' and ''Arunika'',specifically designed for weather and climate research.
• Investment: This project represents an investment of Rs 850 crore.

Empowering the Youth

• Youth Dedication: The Prime Minister dedicated the supercomputers to the youth, emphasizing their role in future scientific advancements.
• Educational Initiatives: Increase in STEM scholarships and the establishment of over 10,000 Atal Tinkering Labs in schools.

National Capability and Self-Reliance

• Computing as National Capability: The Prime Minister highlighted that computing capacity is synonymous with national capability and is essential for economic growth, disaster management, and ease of living.
• Atmanirbharta: Emphasized self-reliance through scientific research, supported by campaigns like Digital India and Make in India.

Space and Semiconductor Industries

• Space Achievements: Noted India''s success in space exploration, including the recent lunar mission to the South Pole.
• Semiconductor Mission: Launched to build a robust semiconductor ecosystem, crucial for global supply chains.

 Impact on Agriculture and Weather Forecasting

• Farmers'' Benefits: Supercomputers will aid in weather and soil analysis, providing insights to farmers and fishermen, improving decision-making and reducing risks.
• Enhanced Forecasting: The HPC system will improve the accuracy and lead time of weather predictions, including severe weather events.

Supercomputer

• Supercomputers are high-performing computers, designed to tackle complex computational challenges.
• They encompass multiple central processing units that break down the required tasks into multiple parts and process them simultaneously, which effectively results in high-speed computation.
• The performance of supercomputers is measured in terms of floating-point operations per second (FLOPs).

Applications of Supercomputers

• Weather Forecasting and Climate Research: When the supercomputer is fed with data gathered via satellites, radars and weather balloons, field experts become better informed on how atmospheric conditions affect us.
• They become better equipped to advise the public on weather-related topics.
• For example, the Derecho supercomputer is being used to explore the effects of solar geoengineering and how releasing aerosols influences rainfall patterns.
• Genome Sequencing: It is a type of molecular modelling which scientists use to get a closer look at a virus’ DNA sequence that helps them diagnose diseases.
• The supercomputer can perform DNA sequencing in a few hours.
• For example, Researchers at Stanford University scored the Guinness World Record title for the fastest genomic sequencing.
• Aviation Engineering: Supercomputing systems in aviation have been used to detect solar flares, predict turbulence and approximate aeroelasticity to build better aircraft.
• For example, Frontier has been recruited by GE Aerospace to test open fan engine architecture designed for the next generation of commercial aircraft that can reduce carbon dioxide emissions significantly.
• Oil and Gas Exploration: They can be used to collect huge quantities of geophysical seismic data to aid in finding and developing oil reserves.
• Military and defence: Supercomputing can allow the military to perform virtual testing of nuclear explosions and ballistic weapons.
• Smog prediction: Many scientists and climatologists use supercomputers in the laboratory to predict fog and other pollution and smog levels in a particular region.

Alexander Dunn to get 2024 SASTRA Ramanujan Prize

• S. A press release said the prize is being given to Mr. Dunn, who has achieved several breakthroughs in the study of modular forms, half-integral weight forms, metaplectic forms and their connections to prime numbers and integer partitions.

Sastra Ramanujan Prize: 

• The prize was instituted in the year 2005.
• It is awarded every year by the SASTRA University on its campus near Kumbakonam in Tamil Nadu, on Ramanujan’s birth anniversary, December 22.
• The prize is conferred annually to mathematicians from across the world who is less than 32 years of age, working in an area influenced by the Srinivasa Ramanujan.
• The age limit is 32 years to commemorate the fact that Ramanujan accomplished a phenomenal body of work in this short span.
• Cash prize: It carries a citation and an award of $10,000.

Who was Srinivasa Ramanujan?

• Ramanujan was born on 22^ndDecember 1887 in the village Erode (400 km from Chennai, then known as Madras).
• The famous British mathematician Godfrey Harold Hardy recognised his talent in 1913. He went to Cambridge, on Godfrey Harold Hardy’s invitation.
• Ramanujam made substantial contributions to the analytical theory of numbers and worked on elliptic functions.
• He also worked on the partition of the whole number, hypergeometric series and Euler''s constant.
• His papers were published in English and European journals, and in 1918 he was elected to the Royal Society of London.
• He died on April 26^th, 1920, at the age of 32, just after returning to India after a long illness.
• In India, 22^ndDecember is celebrated as National Mathematics Day in the memory of Srinivasa Ramanujan.

Contributions:

Formulas and Equations:

• Ramanujan compiled around 3,900 results consisting of equations and identities. One of his most treasured findings was his infinite series for Pi.
• He gave several formulas to calculate the digits of Pi in many unconventional ways.
• Ramanujan’s Book: One of Ramanujan’s notebooks was discovered by George Andrews in 1976 in the library at Trinity College. Later the contents of this notebook were published as a book.

Ramanujan number:

• 1729 is known as the Ramanujan number.
• It is the smallest number which can be expressed as the sum of two different cubes in two different ways.
• 1729 is the sum of the cubes of 10 and 9 - cube of 10 is 1000 and cube of 9 is 729 adding the two numbers results in 1729.
• 1729 is also the sum of the cubes of 12 and 1, cube of 12 is 1728 and cube of 1 is 1 adding the two results in 1729.